Intentionally aiming toward a more joyful life

Tag Archives: health

Weight is such a heavy topic in our culture. We, especially women, are bombarded with messages pushing us to be thinner, or more fit. Weight is equated with health, and if you want to be healthy, you have to be within a certain weight range. And of course, everyone else knows exactly what you need to do to get yourself into that range. You have to eat certain things, not eat certain things, exercise more, and generally make yourself miserable and hate your body. We also aren’t allowed to say that we are fat. We may say that we need to lose weight, but God forbid we call anyone fat. Fat is almost a swear word. Continue reading →

My husband loves his yogurt. He loves it so much that he makes it himself and eats nearly a quart each day at work. Yes, a quart. He credits it with curing his persistent toothaches and with boosting his immune system. I’m not sure if others have similar results, but he has definitely noticed an improvement. Today I am going to walk you through how we make raw milk yogurt in the dehydrator. It is only one of many ways, but it works very well for us. Continue reading →

I was reading a post on Facebook by Sharon Astyk (here is her quiet-for-now blog) who used a personal example of a crisis in her life to explain that we really don’t understand our fellow countrymen right now, and we are only just now realizing we have been completely miscommunicating for a long time. That we need to sit down and really listen to discover how our neighbors see the world because it might be radically different than we do. In the comments (I know, never read the comments, but her Facebook friends are generally very respectful), someone remarked, “We all desperately want to be “read” by others, and (at least for me) it’s so hard to get past innate self-centeredness and lack of communication skills. And yeah, a neighbor could be all the things we fear. Love is stronger than fear, but is expensive. But why else are we here? We’re all so needy and broken.” Love is expensive. Is it? Continue reading →

Ah, Thursday. A day to delight in our bounty. In astrological terms, Thursday is ruled by the planet Jupiter, which represents abundance and growth. This makes it the perfect day to think about thankfulness and count our blessings. I am especially grateful today for the age old handwork of knitting. Continue reading →

One of the great things about the internet is the vast array of resources that are now available to us. Today I want to share some of my favorites with you. They range in topic and format, but they have all been life-changing for me. Continue reading →